I've heard salt is necessary in african cichlid tanks, is this solely to raise Ph, or do they really need salt, and if so, how much and what kind? i have a 55 gallon with the correct Ph- 8.2/8.4, but have not added any cichlids yet just to be sure.
how much salt in african tank?
- Thread starter angelfish123
- Start date
I've never heard that salt is necessary. I have an African Malawi tank and do not add salt....and no one has recommended i use salt, so I'm not sure what the purpose of that is.
IME, you don't need salt.
IME, you don't need salt.
It depends on your tap water but you can add one tsp. of marine or additive-free pickling salt per five gallons, although I don't add quite that much.
To closer match the natural water of Lake Malawi.
http://cichlid-forum.com/articles/buffer_recipe.php
pickling salt is just sodium chloride and adding it does nothing to closer match the natural water of lake malawi. if your water is already hard and alkaline, you don't need to add any salt at all.
Hence the reason I began my comments with "It depends on your tap water but..."
Not every RiftLake cichlid-keeper is blessed with hard, alkaline water out of the tap.
Malawi water has 21.0 ml/l of sodium, 3.57-4.3 mg/l of chloride, and 4.7-8.8 mg/l of magnesium. My tap water has none at all. With crushed coral in my filters my pH would max out at 7.2 but drop to 6.9 during water changes without other additives.
Therefore, depending on your tap water, adding Epsom and pickling salts could make your water more like Malawi[FONT="]. [/FONT]
